Catheters or guide wires are basically known medical implements which are designed in various forms for insertion into body cavities such as for example blood vessels. Catheters of that kind are for example catheters for percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) or also electrode lines for electrostimulation, that is to say for example for intracardial defibrillation. In particular catheters for insertion into blood vessels are frequently of great length and must follow the configuration of the blood vessels in respect of all branchings and windings and therefore have to be flexible. In its implanted condition such a catheter has a larger number of bends over its length.
The catheters which are of interest here are those which have a lumen, that is to say a cavity extending over the length of the catheter, into which for example a guide wire, a mandrin or a stilette or another kind of ‘core’ can be longitudinally or rotationally movably introduced. Particularly in the case of catheters with a large number of bends the problem which arises is that unwanted frictional losses occur between friction or sliding surfaces of the catheter or the core, that is to say the inside wall of the lumen and for example the outside surface of the core. Those frictional losses can for example adversely affect the precision of the movement of the stilette or guide wire in the catheter. A similar problem arises in relation to surfaces, which are movable relative to each other, of the control wires provided for lateral deflection for example of a guide wire, in the interior of the guide wire.